Real
by cellotlix
Summary: "At one time, he was afraid that Shepard had not truly come back, and instead Cerberus had fashioned a cruel facsimile for its sick purposes, capable of walking and talking and feeling exactly as Shepard did. He feared they had created a puppet that wore her lovely face. It was a fear Udina had somehow known well." Kaidan comes to terms with the standoff. One shot.


**AN: Just a quick oneshot I wrote this morning. It'll probably end up getting cannibalized and integrated into my ME3 rewrite at some point, but I like it enough to have it stand on its own. **

**I love hearing from you guys, so please leave me a review and let me know what you thought! Thanks for reading, everyone.  
**

They are spent. Limbs still tangled, hearts racing against ribs in odd cacophony. Open-mouthed, gasping for breath. Her hands are still curled over his back, though the desperation in them is fading. She closes her eyes and falls back into the pillows, and he can't stop staring at the white column of her neck, the improbable grace of it.

"Kaidan," she murmurs, pushing her loose hair off her brow. In the low light of her cabin, her damp skin almost seems to shimmer, and for one moment he's wildly afraid that she isn't real, that she will fade. He answers her with a kiss because he still can't speak, not yet. He kisses her because he's lost the words.

He folds himself around her and buries his face in her neck, pressing his lips to the constellation of freckles there. He marvels at the way she trembles in response.

At one time, he was afraid that Shepard had not truly come back, and instead Cerberus had fashioned a cruel facsimile for its sick purposes, capable of walking and talking and _feeling _exactly as Shepard did. He feared they had created a puppet that wore her lovely face.

It was a fear Udina had somehow known well. He'd used that fear in a futile attempt to turn Kaidan and Shepard against one another. And for a second, it had worked. It had crushed the breath out of his lungs with the infuriating, disgusting possibility; this wasn't Shepard. It was something else. He aimed his gun straight at her heart and wondered if she'd bleed if he shot her, or if there would only be wires beneath that beautiful skin.

But he hesitated because he already knew. When he caught her with a kiss that day in the hospital, she returned it manifold, fierce and warlike, and it was exactly as he remembered. When he said something foolish, he would watch her expression become tenderly irritated; she's impatient and short-tempered, but she bit down on her temper because she told him once that their lives were dangerous, and she couldn't stand it if their last conversation was a stupid argument. When he touched her, she shivered under his hands.

He'd already known she was Shepard before she even said a word to him, beseeching him to listen to her, please. He'd known before she lowered her gun in a sign of almost obscene trust.

Overcome, he burrows closer to her, burying his face in her neck. She cranes around. "What is it?" she asks him, stroking his hair. "What's wrong?"

He still doesn't know how to say it, so instead he cups her face and brushes his thumb across her cheekbone, over the freckles there. "I'm sorry," he says to her. "I'm sorry."

"For what? That was amazing." She's still a bit breathless, and a half smile plays at her lips. He likes seeing her this smug. "Wasn't it?"

Of course she misunderstood. He descends so deeply in his thoughts sometimes that it startles him when he realizes he's left her far behind, speculating and stressing while she still basked in the glow of their lovemaking. "It was," he agrees. "That's not what I meant."

"What, then?"

He's silent for a moment. "I'm sorry for doubting you, Shepard," he says softly. "I'm sorry I . . . god. It's not every day you have an armed standoff with someone you love."

Now she understands. She's serious again, and he feels like a jackass for ruining the mood. "Do you think you could have taken the shot? If I didn't back down?"

He doesn't lie, though the truth makes him sick. "For a moment, I thought that maybe Udina was right. That you weren't . . . you."

She must have guessed this because she doesn't seem surprised or angry; she's just looking at him with a thoughtful crease over her brow. "But?" she prompts.

"But I remembered that you were. And that I wasn't going to let anything make me doubt that. I just . . . I shouldn't have doubted to begin with. I _know _you're you."

She holds his face between her hands, which are soft and warm, and he leans into her touch, the comfort there. "I don't care that you doubted, Kaidan. All that matters to me is in the end, you believed again."

It always amazed him that even if he failed to avoid triggering her temper, she would eventually approach his shortcomings with such boundless understanding that he almost didn't know what to do with such a thing. "Always, Shepard," he promises her, the only thing he can offer.

She kisses him softly, and it is a seal on this promise between them; that regardless of doubt or the manipulations of others, he will come back to her again and know that she is as real as the breath in his lungs, the blood in his veins. She is as real and vital to him as a heartbeat.


End file.
